Trello Tutorial

When managing digital projects, whether from the technology or marketing side, certain tools make the work easier.

Trello is one of them. And, in my opinion, one of the best suited for teams of between 3 and 5 people.

Does that mean it can't be used individually or by two people?

No, it can. I just think there are better options for that. More agile ones (Notion, for example).

Likewise, there are also more convenient options (at least for me) for larger teams (such as Jira, also from Atlassian).).

But what is Trello?

What is Trello

The company's own definition:

“Trello is the free, flexible, and visual way to organize anything with anyone.”

Let's break that down:

• Free: the free plan is more than enough in many cases and is the one this module will focus on, although the tool has several paid plans that will be detailed in the relevant section.
• Flexible: it can be applied to all kinds of projects, both personal and professional, and to all types of organizations (individual or group, with the nuances mentioned earlier).
• Visual: it is a tool based on boards, lists, and cards. Much of its power lies here, because the information is very clear at a glance.
• Organization: the key point. It helps you organize whatever you need.
• With anyone: it lets you invite as many people as needed to the board

This is the overall view of the tool:

And this is what a project board looks like:

What it is for

To make it easier to manage and organize all kinds of projects, teams, and workflows.

I repeat: all kinds of projects.

Not just professional and / or digital projects.

For example:

Weddings

https://blog.trello.com/say-yes-to-less-stress-using-trello-to-plan-a-wedding

Holidays

https://blog.trello.com/all-a-board-plan-a-vacation-with-trello

Job hunting

https://blog.trello.com/using-trello-for-a-job-search-less-stress-more-process

And, of course, also for professional projects such as these:

Editorial calendar

https://blog.trello.com/moved-to-published-using-trello-as-an-editorial-calendar

Project management with agile methodology

https://blog.trello.com/an-agile-trello-workflow-that-keeps-tasks-flexible

As you can see, the "all kinds of projects" claim is very true.

Do you think it could fit into your workflow? Then it's time to try it, because it has a free plan.

Download Trello

Right, if you want to play around with the tool while following this tutorial, the first thing is to download it from any of these places.

Trello for Windows

You can download it from the Microsoft Store, specifically here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/store/p/trello/9nblggh4xxvw?rtc=1

Trello for Mac

Likewise, you can download it from the App Store for your Mac:

https://apps.apple.com/app/trello/id1278508951?ls=1&mt=12

Trello app for Android

It's available for Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trello&pli=1

Trello app for iOS

And also for iPhone:

https://apps.apple.com/app/trello-organize-anything/id461504587

Trello Web

Finally, if you're not sure you'll use it, my recommendation is to start with the web version, without downloading anything.

You'll have time later to download the version you need, if the tool ends up convincing you.

To access the website and create your account, just go here:

https://trello.com/

How to use Trello

Much of Trello's success comes from its simplicity and ease of use. Once you understand a couple of concepts, working with it becomes very intuitive.

Basic concepts

First, let's clarify these concepts.

Boards

The different boards the person or team will use.

We can work with a single board for personal or small projects, or distribute lists and tasks across several.

Each blue box is a board:

As you can see, at Yo pongo el hielo we have several boards:

• Current sprint: for the tasks to be carried out in this sprint. A sprint, in case you've never heard the term, is a digital product development cycle that usually lasts between one and three weeks, after which the changes made are deployed to production.
• Recurring tasks: a fairly descriptive name. Reporting tasks, bank reconciliation, payroll payments, etc. that are done every day, week, or month. They are included here along with their documentation so that if someone new has to take one on, they know where to start.
• Future ideas and tasks: good ideas are not lost, they are written down. And this is the board for that. We also add what is looming on the horizon, such as "Universal Analytics shutdown and GA4 implementation" or "Change in VAT regulations and introduction of the one-stop shop". Things that are not urgent now, but that will have to be done sooner or later.
• Bugs / Incidents: we didn't rack our brains too much over this name either. Things we detect on the website that need to be fixed and resolved. Sometimes immediately, other times by adding them to future sprints.

This is our board setup. Yours may or may not be similar, because it depends on each project. Boards adapt to each business and not the other way around.

Lists

Right, when we enter a board, what we see are different lists.

This would be our Current sprint board:

As you can see, the board is divided into four lists of cards / tasks:

• Ready: tasks ready to be carried out in the sprint, but not yet started.
• Doing: tasks that have been started.
• Done: tasks completed but not validated.
• Validated: completed and validated tasks. Ready to be deployed to production when the time comes.

Again, this is how our project is organized. In yours, you could add columns such as Approved if you need approval from a department or QA Pre if testing is required in a pre-production environment.

As before, the lists adapt to the business.

Cards

They are the core of Trello, the smallest elements.

They can be tasks (the usual case for project management), recipes, jobs, content (images, social media or blog copy)… Whatever we need them to be.

Each card can contain the following elements:

• Title: essential so it appears in the list
• Description: recommended; it is the detailed explanation of the card.
• Attachments: images, charts, etc. that help explain the card.
• Labels: they cut across lists and are used to group cards by a different criterion, for example the nature or type of task.
• Cover: a color or image that helps identify the card quickly on the board.
• Assign members: the person or people involved in that card.
• Due dates for the card.
• Checklist: lists within the same task. They are not essential, but they can help.
• Activity: history of changes to the card.
• Comments on the card.

A card does not need to have all of them, only the ones it needs.

People / Members

Exactly that: the people involved in the board.

At a minimum there will be the board creator, but more people can be involved in a board.

Workspaces

This is the highest hierarchy level. It can correspond to projects or work groups.

A workspace can contain up to ten boards on the free plan.

When creating it, we can choose whether it is private or public depending on who we want to be able to see its boards.

In addition, we can invite different members:

Right, now that this has been explained, it's time to create your account and enter the tool.

The Trello interface

Right, now that the main concepts are clear, it's time to get hands-on with the tool. Let's look at the options.

Top menu

From here we can carry out a number of actions.

From the left side of the top row we can:

• Access our home page -with all workspaces and shortcuts to the latest boards-, by clicking the logo.
• From the different drop-down menus on the left we can:
• Access the different workspaces.
• Access the boards we have opened recently.
• Or those we have marked as favorites.
• Apply a template.

On the right side of the same top row we find:

• The search box: useful for searching by card name.
• The notifications.
• The different modes (light mode, dark mode, original…)
• Clicking our icon opens the options and preferences for our account.

The row immediately below corresponds to the board.

Here we can:

• Edit the name of the board.
• Mark it as a favorite.
• Add a Power-Up (advanced functionality).
• Automate: for example, create an email report summarizing the cards due in the next 7 days.
• View team members' activity.
• Share the board.
• The three-dot icon adds more specific options such as:
• Add a description to the board.
• Change the design.
• View board activity.
• Copy the board.
• Close it.
• Watch it.
• Print it

Side menu

The options we have here are as follows:

• Shortcut to the Boards section, which shows the ones you can access.
• View the members of the Workspace or add more.
• Change the visibility of the workspace or link it with Slack, another productivity tool from Atlassian (the same company that owns Trello).
• Workspace Views expands our display options, but it is not available on free plans.
• Finally, we can mark some of our boards as favorites or create a new.

Boards section

It is the general overview of your Trello. Here you can:

• View all the boards you have created, as well as the teams.
• Add, share, or configure boards.
• You cannot delete boards directly. To delete one, you first have to close it.
• Mark boards as favorites
• Configure the workspace by clicking the icon (top left).

Lists

As I was saying, lists are simply groups of cards, which make up the different boards.

Each list has its title and its cards, which ideally should be ordered (by priority, date, responsible member…)

By clicking the three-dot icon on each list, I can:

• Add a card.
• Copy the list.
• Move the list to another board.
• Watch the list (if I only want to monitor it).
• Create an automation.
• Archive the list if I am no longer going to create or modify its cards in the future.

Cards

This is how they look in the lists: cover, title, watching, number of comments, whether it has attachments, whether it has a checklist, and assigned members:

When I click it and open it, I can see its contents and edit it:

Each card has a series of components:

• Title.
• Members.
• Due date.
• Description: supports Markdown formatting (widely used for writing on the Internet) and emojis.
• Attachments: whichever one we choose will be the card's “cover” and will be shown in the lists.
• Comments.
• Labels.
• Checklist.
• Activity.
• Power-ups.
• Custom fields.

In addition to each card's components, I can perform a series of actions on each one:

• Move it: move it to another board.
• Duplicate it: useful for similar tasks, to save time.
• Watch it: be notified of changes to it.
• Archive it: if I no longer need it, it disappears from the lists. As with boards, this is the step before deleting it completely.

How Trello works

Once the concepts and interface are clear, the system used to work with this tool is very simple:

1. We create an account.
2. We create the Workspace.
3. We create one or more boards, depending on what we need.
4. On each board, we define the necessary lists.
5. In each list, we create the cards we need and add whatever interests us (Title, description, images…)
6. Depending on the type of project, we move the cards between the different lists when necessary. I'll clarify that with an example now.
7. Optionally, we add the necessary members to each board.

Usage example

Let me clarify the system with our example:

1. Each member has their own account in the tool.
2. We have a workspace called "YPEH".
3. Inside it are the four boards explained earlier.
4. On each board we have our lists. On the Current sprint board, we create the four lists based on the task status I mentioned earlier.
5. Within each list, we add the different tasks. All of them have a title and description and are assigned to at least one member. Some also have checklists and / or images.
6. When the member assigned a task starts it, they take the corresponding card and move it from the Ready list to Doing. Likewise, when they finish it they move it to Done. The person responsible for validating it (who may or may not be the same person who developed it) will move it from Done to Validated once they have checked that everything is correct.

I hope the example makes the usual workflow in the tool clearer for project management.

In fact, in a future article I'll explain how I use it together with the agile method Kanban.

Advanced Trello

So far we've covered the basics.

We've only scratched the surface of the tool, which is already a lot when it comes to improving the organization of teams and projects.

If you've never used an agile methodology, you'll understand it when you read the corresponding article.

But besides all this, which as I say is the tool's standard use, for heavy-user there are more features.

For example, you can use the Markdown markup language to format your card descriptions.

Or use keyboard shortcuts.

In addition, you have power-ups (enhancements).

Trello Power-ups

Go to this page:

https://trello.com/power-ups

You'll see a series of add-ons that can increase your productivity in Trello:

From there, you can add the enhancement you want to any board.

Each one gives you certain features, and several are extremely useful.

For example, Dashboards by Screenful lets you add charts to track sprints.

Or this calendar, which is like Google Calendar on steroids.

You also have integrations for countless tools:

• Google Drive.
• Slack.
• Gmail.
• Microsoft Teams.
• Zoho CRM.
• MailChimp.
• …

But wait, there's still more.

Browser extensions

Exactly: you have extensions that make your day-to-day work easier.

Such as Planyway, which adds a calendar and timeline to your board:

Or Elegantt, which adds a Gantt chart to your board:

Here you have a complete list.

They are by no means all necessary, but it is true that quite a few are useful (and that's despite the Gmail one having been removed, which let you attach emails to a card and, at least for me, was extremely useful).

Advantages of using Trello

After all this, I hope you'll consider using this tool.

But if I still haven't convinced you, here are a couple more points:

Low learning curve

Using Trello is very easy.

From day one you'll be creating your cards, lists, and boards.

And it really adapts to any project. It is very flexible.

What's more, in the early stages, if you make a mistake it's very easy to fix, so you can do and undo things without fear.

As I said, you'll barely need to train people because it's intuitive.

What you will need to do is shape your organization and think through the lists and protocols.

Convenient to use

Related to the above, you'll see that it integrates well into day-to-day work.

It does not add an extra burden of work when carrying out our tasks (the increase is slight).

Creating the cards also helps us think through each task properly: see what we have, what we're missing, how we assign it…

Large community

This means people use it.

And that developers are working on it and expanding its features, making it more versatile every day.

We've seen this with Power-ups and extensions, but it can also be seen in the amount of documentation available, which will help you solve a problem no matter how specific it is.

Everything is documented

And this matters.

It is a repository we can return to when we don't remember something.

It is not a documentation manager, but for many organizations this is enough.

Content, designs, comments, dates… are all recorded.

Improves our planning

Having an overall view of everything we have underway and the people available makes us more aware of the reality of the business.

Of all the advantages, I'd say this is the main one.

It's free

This is a good advantage too, hehe.

Well, rather than being free, let's say it has a free plan.

Big.

Enough for medium-sized companies and projects in many cases.

And if it becomes too small for you, you can always change plans.

Trello pricing

Speaking of plans, here are the current plans, which, as you can see, are nothing extraordinary:

The most important things included in the free plan are:

• Up to 10 boards per Workspace.
• Unlimited cards.
• Unlimited Power-Ups per board.
• Unlimited storage (10 MB maximum file size).
• 250 automations per Workspace per month.
• Unlimited activity logs.
• Due dates and assignees.
• Multi-device.

And from there, each plan adds the relevant improvements. You can see them all here:

https://trello.com/pricing

Alternatives to Trello

For me there are mainly two. The ones I mentioned at the beginning.

Notion

For personal organization or small teams (one or two people).

In fact, it's what I use day to day for my own things.

Calling it a supercharged notepad doesn't do it justice.

It's very useful when you don't need to create cards, because creating or deleting a note and reminder takes less time than creating a card and / or moving it.

Everything is more fluid without losing too much power, but I don't recommend it for teams of more than two.

You can download it here:

https://www.notion.so/

Jira

In reality, for me it's a more powerful version of Trello and more focused on software development.

While I can organize any kind of event with Trello, I don't see Jira that way.

Not for a marketing department either.

Now, when it comes to integrating marketing, digital product, UX, and IT, I think it's fantastic.

If that's your case, take a look. It is paid, though.

Download it here:

https://www.atlassian.com/es/software/jira

Conclusions

I hope this quick overview of Trello helps you get into the tool, or at least gives you ideas for better organizing your projects or team.

In addition, if you want to keep progressing with the tool, in this article I explain how to use the Kanban methodology with Trello.

And if you know you should use it but need help implementing it in your business, let's talk.